Tobacco use is a big and growing problem, as it leads to severe health problems (e.g. heart diseases, cancers, etc.) and deaths. With ToQuit, we want to help reduce levels of harm to tobacco users, by transforming the process of helping tobacco users. So far, this has been a face-to-face method, delivered by highly trained and expensive healthcare workers. Our aim is to make this process more accessible and widely available by using mobile phones as these are widely owned across India and other low- and middle-income countries [LMICs]).

ToQuit will be a significant step in tobacco cessation research in low resource settings; this will be the first time in India that a potentially scalable and contextually relevant tobacco cessation intervention is being developed, using a scientifically rigorous methodology. Although developed in India, ToQuit can prove to be useful in other low resource settings around the world. There is a growing interest in tobacco cessation activities from policymakers and other stakeholders in India but, the absence of scalable solutions hinders the development of programmes that can realistically enhance access to care for tobacco users. If proven to be effective, ToQuit would be an appropriate innovation that overcomes the barriers to scalability (primarily the shortage of trained formal healthcare professionals) in low resource settings. Evidence about the acceptability and feasibility of ToQuit will be relevant for health care providers who come into contact with tobacco users. In the longer term, if our contextually appropriate ToQuit program is found to be cost-effective, it has the potential of being integrated into routine care through modifying clinical guidelines for tobacco cessation activities in India. This short-term goal for ToQuit would be to provide a contextually scalable tobacco cessation intervention and data on processes to successfully test the effectiveness of the intervention in a definitive trial (RCT study). This will be a critical first step of a systematic research process and meets the key aims of this grant.